The vote count on the new prison must be tight: Governor Larry Rhoden and the GOP establishment propaganda machine are going all out with weekend press releases to push the Legislature to approve the $650-million replacement for the old penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
The most persuasive of the propaganda offered this weekend is the contractors’ promise that they won’t charge the state more than the $650 million the Governor swears the new Benson Road brig will cost:
Governor Rhoden and Members of the South Dakota Legislature:
On September 8, 2025, we signed a letter expressing our confidence that the new 1,500 (+/-) bed correctional facility to be constructed on the new Benson Road Site, built to achieve a 100-year life expectancy, could be constructed for the estimated total value of $650 Million including building costs, site costs, and owner’s soft costs.
…Based on the knowledge we have gained working with your team for the last 2.5 years, we feel we are the best team to hit your $650M Total Project Cost Goal.
This letter will serve as our commitment to a Guaranteed Maximum Price of our construction portion of the $650 million Total Project Cost for the planned construction of a 1488 (+/-) bed correctional facility at the Benson Road Site built to achieve a 100 year life expectancy. This commitment is earlier than our original contract requires, but out of respect for the Legislature, it is important to us to give you this commitment.
Following passage of the proposed legislation at the September 23, 2025 Special Session, we will produce and work with your team to execute a mutually agreeable AIA Construction GMP Amendment, within 30 days of Notice to Proceed [emphasis in original; Vance McMillan, JE Dunn Construction, and H. Chip Carlson III, Henry Carlson Construction, letter to Governor Larry Rhoden and the South Dakota Legislature, 2025.09.19].
Skeptics like Rep. Marty Overweg (R-19/New Holland) have cast doubt on the reliability of the $650M cap. “I just want to make sure that we have a firm price,” Overweg told Searchlight earlier this month. Well, McMillan and Carlson’s letter makes $650 million about as firm a price as we can get.
We all know cops’ lives suck because they reliably abuse the rule of law, their families, alcohol, drugs, food, power, detainees and occasionally murder their wives; nevertheless, police unions are showered with cash while teachers’ unions get the shaft. But hey, if Tony Venhuizen wants to feed from the Qochtopus gravy train he has to prove he’s numbed to the misery, hopelessness and despair his father-in-law and political party have heaped on South Dakotans. In South Dakota mass incarceration fuels the white foster home industry: a pet project of Tony’s mother-in-law and the state’s relations with tribal nations trapped there are at historic lows.
Racism is endemic in South Dakota, especially in reservation border towns like Rapid City and Sioux Falls and with guidance from the Koch’s American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC Republicans routinely pass legislation that disenfranchises Native voters. Nearly 40% of the state’s inmate population and 63% of the more than 500 women in South Dakota’s lockups are Indigenous Americans.